


the quiet we hold

by ithacas



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:15:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithacas/pseuds/ithacas
Summary: After Scarif, Cassian wakes up broken. He and Jyn learn to fix each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I hesitate to call this 'fix-it' fic because the movie needs no fixing - it's perfect in all its heartbreaking splendor. That being said I now live and breathe for Cassian/Jyn and needed to channel that energy (the hows and whys of it all were less interesting in the writing of this). This is what came out. Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. PTSD mentions are frequent and there is a throwaway comment that references suicide, so please proceed with caution.

Jyn passes out when the first shock wave hits the beach. They both breathe in, unable to control their reflexes; Jyn starts coughing. Her lungs sound like Cassian's feel; on fire, like they've swallowed gravel as if it's water. Her hand clutches his tightly for a second, and Cassian takes it as a warning and looks at her. She blinks slowly, her eyes a terrible, sore red, and understanding passes through them. He thinks she might be saying goodbye.

She passes out then, straight into his arms, a weight he's become used to now. He coughs, sand scraping against his throat, all too aware of the blast wound on his back. She feels heavier than she really is in his useless arms. Any other time, any other place, he could have held her like a bride, or a feather. A voice that doesn't sound unlike Kay echoes through his aching head; _and you would get beaten up for trying to carry her, don't you know that, Cassian Andor? Where's that famous self-preservation instinct?_

He finds better purchase around her limp body. From the corner of his eye he can see the waves getting closer. He can't look directly at the horizon anymore.

He would have tried, he thinks. If there had been a chance of them surviving, he would have tried carrying her to safety.

His face burns. His eyes hurt. He wants to sleep. He does, and he dreams.

 

*

 

He's dreaming just before he wakes up. Pain and heat and terrible, horrible loss, they make him yell and tear his eyes open. His heart is beating like an Imperial drum. He stares above him and the panic doesn't subside. All he sees is whiteness, cruel, bright whiteness that he doesn't recognise, and in the moment before his brain kicks in and starts making sense of the world, he thinks he is dead. 

"Jyn." 

His voice doesn't sound like his own. It hurts his throat to make any kind of noise. It’s like sand is running against his insides, coarse and raw. It's a relief to be able to speak it though, to say the name. Then his brain catches up with his body and his mouth opens wide, not to say Jyn's name this time. 

The scream makes him lurch. It's like everything from his neck down is on fire. As if heat is still piercing his skin. Amongst the pain, the debilitating, horrible, burning pain, there's something else, another sensation. Something grips him tight, metal fingers are pressing down on his upper arms to hold him still. He chases the touch because it's not the crippling agony that's running through every nerve in his body. Anything, anything other than the pain. He rips his eyes open, trying to run away and run to at the same time. 

 _Where is Jyn, where’s K2 -?_  

Hearing kicks in last. The incessant beeping and whirring of the medical equipment keeping him alive, the soft hum of the space station he’s in, the heartbeat in his throat and his chest and his throbbing back and the voice above him, the voice that belongs to the eyes he can’t see. He can’t understand what it’s saying at first; the words are sharp and loud and too much to process. 

He gives up. 

When he comes to the second time, he feels both better and worse. The pain has dulled to something quiet and constant; the fatigue he feels right down to his marrow is making him slow but it’s the tired feeling that comes after heavy, empty sleep and it’s a blessing. He’s alone, this time, when he wakes up. The fear kicks in sharply and he panics, plain and simple, as his eyes scan the artificial ceiling above him. He wants to move, he _has_ to move but his limbs aren’t doing what he wants them to. His chest feels tight and his stomach feels like it’s carrying lead and this is not okay, he is not okay, he is wrong, he is broken, he’s - 

It becomes hard to breathe again. He can’t see the blinding white of the medical bay, or the opalescent meddroid coming to his side anymore. All he can see is red, and sand, and the waves coming to drown him - 

There’s the tiniest amount of pressure on the crook of his arm, a pinprick of a needle. A wave of nothingness rushes through him, pushing up and below that point. His limbs stop convulsing and his head clears. He’s not on Scarif; he takes one deep, laborious breath and it’s easier now, his heartbeat has settled and his muscles don’t quite ache so much. 

He doesn’t recognise _where_ he is but one medic station is the same as any other. He can’t read the medical equipment connected to him but the technology is old. So he’s with the Rebels. He’s safe. He’s gone. 

“Hello, Cassian,” says the medic droid in a soft voice that immediately soothes him. A warm artificial hand touches his neck softly. “You just had a panic attack. I gave you a sedative and now your heart rate is back to normal. Has this happened before?” 

Cassian blinks rapidly. “I don’t -” _I don’t know,_ he wants to say _._ But now that it’s happened, the feeling is familiar. Blast powder. It happened on Malpaz, the first time. He was six. 

Somewhere on the edge of his mind, there’s an uncomfortable push, an instinct telling him to shut down and scream. The drugs keep it at bay though, the drugs and the 22B droid gazing at him serenely. 

“Yes,” he says hoarsely, his vocal chords unsure how to handle the sudden need to be used. “It’s happened before.” 

The droid nods slowly and moves over to the monitors at the end of Cassian’s med pod, tapping on the screen. 

“Your back was broken, Cassian,” says the droid, matter-of-factly. It’s not cruel the way it delivers the statement but Cassian knows his blood would be growing cold hearing it without the influence of whatever chemicals have been injected in him. “But you heal well. We put you in an induced sleep while we treated the break and your burns and you’ve made a remarkable recovery. The scarring on your skin will take longer to fade but your spinal cord is now intact. You will be able to walk, Cassian,” the droid mutters soothingly, as if it knows what Cassian is thinking. 

“It won’t be a easy process,” the droid continues, while charts and holos float around it. “You’ve experienced some pain every time you’ve woken up in the last couple of weeks. Your muscles aren’t used to movement…”

The rest of the droid’s words are drowned out by white noise. Weeks. He’s been asleep for weeks. The shock of it – weeks asleep, cut off from whatever the world has become – is enough to make a little of the panic sneak through. He doesn’t scream but his arms - and not his legs - jerk and his jaw flexes and a penetrating pain is gathering in the corner of his eyes. He sees the wave every time his eyes sting from not blinking. Oppressive heat, the water scorching his ankles, Jyn’s fingers limp in his hands –

“Jyn,” he says again. “Jyn Erso. The woman. Where is she? Did she – ?” His chest feels tight at the possibility. “Did she make it?” 

The droid pauses while it accesses its records. Cassian can hear his blood, can hear the whir of the equipment around him, can even hear the hum of a ship’s engine outside. He can’t remember ever praying, never in his life, not when Ma died, not when Milio left, not on the beach when he and Jyn knew with every fibre of their being that death was coming. He wishes he knew how to. He wishes Chirrut were beside him, whispering his own prayer to the Force. 

“Jyn Erso is in stable condition,” says the droid finally. “She has been comatose since your extraction but we believe she will recover.”

Cassian knows he hasn’t eaten since before Scarif. Still, his body heaves at the droid’s words. He can’t sit up but his chest convulses, acid and nothing more clawing out of his throat. His right arm clutches at his stomach instinctively and the nothingness from his chest down is palpable, a blankness that should be taking up space. He coughs and can’t stop and the panic that hasn’t subsided doubles at the sight of the white robe falling with no feeling over his legs. He concentrates on the pinprick of pain in his right arm until he can’t do it anymore. Tiredness hits him, heavy and bone-aching. 

The oppressive heat of the explosion is comforting this time.

 

*

 

He is told Senator Mothma visited him while he slept. It puts him on edge, knowing he’s asleep and vulnerable but if Cassian Andor could trust anyone, it might be the Senator. She stayed by his side a whole night until the Alliance informed her of the Alderanian princess’s capture. 

Cassian’s stomach heaves at that thought. He is alone now, with only the meddroid for company, and he can’t stop his brain from telling him it was all for nothing; death and horror and incessant nightmares filled with sand and smoke, and the Alliance got itself captured, along with the plans for the Death Star. 

His hands clench tight, his knuckles white and sweaty. He counts his breaths, one for each member of the Rogue crew that stopped breathing on Scarif. He would stop breathing altogether if it weren’t for the breath he owes to Jyn. She’s lying in the room next to his, asleep and barely alive but alive nonetheless, and he owes her the same respect he’s afforded every single man that died for the plans. He’ll keep breathing until she stops. He knows it makes no sense, and if he told the droid it would put itself on suicide watch, but it’s the only thing keeping him from not waking up every day. 

One breath left for Jyn Erso. 

The Senator allowed him to visit her. That’s what the droid said when he woke up on the fourth day since his recovery. She’s in a med pod, wired up and sleeping, but she’s had her string of visitors; rebel admirers, there either to stare at Galen Erso’s daughter, or to pay their respects to the Rogue One hero. That’s what he says when he’s asked why he hasn’t gone yet; he can’t face being one of the crowd, gawking at the woman who lost her life on Scarif, trying to save something she wasn’t sure she believed in. 

 _Almost_ lost her life. Sometimes he has to remind himself they aren’t dead. 

The real reason is something he can’t put words to. It’s in his chest, a nameless mass that has him staring at the his useless legs and think, _good. That’s what you get for playing the hero, Cassian Andor. You’re no hero. You’re just a jumped up murderer._ Guilt, some might call it. It would be that if he was capable of it. 

 _Murderer_. Sometimes he adds the Rogue crew to his body count. Not his blaster, but his bodies all the same. 

Not Jyn. Not yet. So he stays away. Close, but away.

 

*

 

The injury to his spine is incomplete. The droid tells him that means he can walk. With pain. Pain always. They fit him with crutches salvaged from an Imperial ship that was carrying fuel to the Maw. 

They’re not meant for a human. They belonged to a carrier droid that's been reprogrammed and they fit under his arms like a shirt Pa might have handed down to him when he was a child. They restore his balance only just, but that's all he needs to stand and use his feet for the first time in weeks. Even when he uses the crutches, it feels wrong, alien; he can’t walk for more than the length of his room before he pants out with exhaustion, he tries to dress himself and he can't get his grip right, he wakes up with a headache made worse when his legs make him cry in agony. 

He can walk though, which is more than he deserves. He forces himself to wake up every morning, and to leave his room eventually, and face the world like he must. It's hard and it hurts but he can't stay stuck with his mind playing his last moments over and over and over again. 

He goes to the mess hall only when Draven finds him in the physio gym, punching with no aim. His hair was stuck to him with sweat, his right fist was bloody and his back was bruised with effort; he looked like death. "Do you want to kill yourself," Draven yelled. Cassian didn't answer. 

He should have, he knows. Maybe he wouldn't be here now, sitting in the mess hall at the cornermost table, swallowing flavorless sludge, trying not to feel the weight of every single pair of eyes on him. Soldiers stop by his table, banging their fists on it and singing his praises and Cassian feels sick every time someone tells him he did a good job. _Do you see Jyn Erso here? Do you see Bodhi? Do you see K2?_ Those that stick around start aimless conversations around him. When he pretends to laugh, just to try it, they all flinch like he's poison. 

When Melshi's sister comes over, Cassian feels like he might throw up everything he's managed to swallow. She says nothing, just smiles and touches his shoulder. It's meant to be a comfort. Once she's gone, Cassian flees like he's been branded.

 

*

 

He makes the decision eventually. 

This time when he trains he's more careful. He wraps bandages around his knuckles and brushes his hair back. He lets the crutches fall to the floor before he hits the speed bag, feeling his own weight and testing his new lack of strength. He leads with his elbow - one, two, one - and keeps his legs tight, willing them not to tremble. He does it the way he was taught, the way Pa told him to - _"Throw your elbow at them, son, not your wrist!"_ \- but he tires out too easy, his hands falling rigid and useless too fast. 

He's panting and kneeling on the cool linoleum when he makes up his mind. He gets up and unwraps his hand, sucking at the small cut on one of his fingers. It's quiet in the training hall, the only sound the rhythmic fall of his crutches. After dark, after a long day, the Rebellion is finally asleep. Cassian can't help the relief he feels; people overwhelm him these days. He's never not enjoyed being alone but these days, after Scarif, he needs it. 

The walk towards the med center is familiar. Green pale lights and shining floors, meddroids downloading information and pumping their patients with as much medication as the Rebellion can afford. _Not much,_ he thinks in K2’s voice, the phantom pain of his broken back twinging for attention. _Not enough._

He limps past his door. He doesn't look at it, he's determined not to look at it, because he knows if he does his resolve will crumble and he will break. How much more can a broken man break? _An infinite amount._  

He doesn't let himself hesitate before he slides Jyn's door open. He doesn't look at the screen monitoring her progress, he doesn't try to understand the numbers and the charts and the terrifying red lines. He just goes to the med pod and grips tightly at its edge. 

She would look like she's asleep if it wasn't for the steady drip of something blue feeding into her wrist. If not for the oxygen mask hooked over her mouth. 

If not for the pink slashes over her eyes. 

"They are burn scars to the lid and cornea," says the meddroid. _His_ meddroid, he's come to think of it as. "They were caused by the exposure." 

Cassian can hear how labored his breathing is in the silence of the room. 

"Will she be able to see when," _if,_ "she wakes up?"

"We can't be certain. I believe so. In some capacity." 

 _In some capacity._ He could laugh at the irony of it. He wonders if Chirrut would find it amusing. One pair of blind eyes for another. He wonders if he can add a pair of eyes to a body count. He wonders if a sleeping body counts as a dead one. 

"You can sit here, if you wish," says his med droid, wheeling over a chrome chair. 

Cassian doesn't wish, but his body is weary from training and his legs buckle under the soft pressure of the chair hitting the backs of his knees. He sits down, his head just the right height to be able to watch Jyn sleep.

 

*

 

"You can talk to her, if you wish," his droid says. 

Cassian doesn't wish, but he hasn't spoken to a living soul in days and his mouth opens when the droid nudges him. 

"You look like hell, Jyn Erso." He sounds like an old man and he hopes she doesn't mistake him for someone else more deserving to be here.

 

*

 

"You can hold her hand, if you would like, Cassian." 

Cassian has learned not to lie to himself in all the years he's been alive. He won't start now. 

He looks at her unmoving hand. He feels it still, her hand tightening around his _then_ , like she was saying goodbye. 

"You didn't say it, Jyn Erso," he croaks. "You can't leave without saying it." 

He reaches out, soft unused hand in his, cuts and bruises and all.

 

*

 

"Cassian." 

He knows before his droid keeps talking. 

He’s in his room, crutches in his lap as he adjusts the bolts and screws just enough to say that they’re his. They’re _not._ He looks up slowly and thanks the stars for the lack of expression. On anyone else, on any other _human,_ there would be pity there. On his droid, there’s just simple, uncomplicated intelligence. 

He takes his last breath. For Jyn Erso. 

“Cassian, Jyn has woken up.”

 

*

 

He’s not proud of it, this hiding. Cassian Andor has never been called a coward but that’s what he has become apparently. He goes from his room to the mess room to the physio gym, preferring company to solitude, to facing the truth in front of him. To facing Jyn. 

22B has come to know him and his moods. It comes to him every morning, to monitor his progress and to scan his vertebrae, and to treat him for the infection in his spine that’s become par of the course. It says nothing about his absence; in fact, it says nothing at all, except for its parting words: 

“Jyn Erso asked after you again, Cassian.” 

Cassian always stops at his door, his head turned toward her room but not looking there. 

“I said you were doing well, all things considered.” 

And Cassian nods, always. And then he bolts.

 

*

 

He’s always hated the phrase ‘to face the music’. He thinks of it now as he punches the speed bag away from his face, and sees Senator Mothma standing in the doorway. He pretends not to have noticed her at first; one, two, one, fist up, one hand lower, one, two, one - 

He pants out when he stops, realizing just how pathetic he’s being. Breathing heavily, he unwinds the bandages and shakes the hair out of his eyes. “You’re up late, Senator.”

“We have been following the _Devastator_ ’s movements.” 

Cassian grabs a towel and pats his face, leaning on one of his crutches. He doesn’t go closer and she doesn’t approach. He’s appreciative of that much understanding between them. 

“Organa’s daughter?” 

“It’s been confirmed that Lord Vader has captured her. We don’t yet know if she succeeded in sending the plans away.” 

He feels the panic on his tongue. It tastes like acid and heat and smoke and he squeezes his hands trying to tap it down. _All for nothing, all for nothing, all for -_  

“How is your back?” If Cassian tried, he could pretend there was care in her voice. Cassian doesn’t try, because no one has cared for him since Ma and Pa died. Not really. Not even - 

He tries to sit up straight in answer. “It works.” 

She looks like she doesn’t believe him. “I’m told the infection has left you very weak. You went into shock yesterday.” 

Cassian sits, his knees apart, his arms folded in his lap. He fainted yesterday, he remembers that much. He woke up again this morning, his droid warning that he was straining his spine trying to walk this much.

 “I’m fine.” 

Mothma nods. “Yes. That’s what she said too.”

Cassian blinks, raptly attentive. “Who?” _You know who, Cassian Andor._  

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, Captain.” Her hand brushes against the speed bag. She pushes harder, looking satisfied when it fights back. “You have been vital, Captain Andor. The Alliance would not be as strong as it is without you. We would not have hope of destroying the Death Star weapon without yours and Rogue One’s courage.” 

“This sounds like a dismissal, Senator.”

“It is. Of a sort.” This time, she aims a soft fist at the bag. It’s surprisingly skilled. “The meddroid that has been tending to you suggests a recuperating period. On a true Type-1 planet. The fresh air will do you good.” 

Cassian stares. It’s as if she started speaking Dosh and he understood the words separately but strung in a sentence together they made no sense to him. 

“Senator…” 

Mothma gives the bag a particularly vicious shove. “I misspoke before. You _are_ vital. You are _still_ vital, Captain Andor. The Rebellion needs you.” 

“Then why, Senator, are you talking about sending me _away?”_  

Mothma looks at him, not the bag, finally. “You have not been able to look one of us in the eye since you woke up, Andor. Draven says the soldiers are afraid of you. I say you’re more afraid of them.” 

Cassian flinches. He can’t look her in the eye even now. 

Mothma sighs. “This is not optional. You leave as soon as the meddroid allows it.” There’s a pause, and Cassian thinks he’s alone for one precious second. Then he feels a phantom touch, as if the Senator was about to put her hand on his back and then remembered. 

“And go see Erso. You’ve faced more terrible things than a girl as broken as you are.”

 

*

 

_The sand burns. The wind stings his eyes. Jyn is curled up in his arms still passed out._

Cassian screws his eyes shut, helpless at the onslaught. He’s stronger than this, because he’s been through worse; loss and death and pain, they’re all as familiar as breathing. Mothma was right; he can’t be afraid of this girl. It’s in his head and he needs to get over it. He’s been talking himself into it all day. Saying the goodbye he never got to say to Jyn Erso will help purge that particular demon. 

The door slides open and Cassian thinks nothing aside from how dark it is in here. His droid had warned him before he came. “She has photophobia, Cassian, so do not be alarmed by the lack of light.” 

“Hello?” 

His knees nearly buckle at the sound of her voice. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized that his dreams had robbed him of it. Whenever he dreams of the beach, all he can hear are the waves crashing around them, her heartbeat getting slower against his chest, his own labored, shallow breathing. Not her voice, the need he remembers hearing in her voice. 

“Too-toobee? I know you said it has to be dark but I can’t even see your shadow.” 

He’s been frozen this entire time but he makes himself move forward. “It’s Andor.” 

It’s silent for a long time. Then, “Lights. Dim.” 

Cassian blinks rapidly to get used to the change. Jyn is sitting in a chair by the window, the one he’d made his home while she was sleeping. She has a blanket wrapped around her, her arms holding it close under her chin. She must’ve been staring out the window, safe from the Yavin sun in the evening. Now her head is turned toward him, her scarred eyelids cutting holes into his skin. 

“That took you long enough.” She sounds like she’s biting more than talking. 

Instead of shame, all he feels is anger. “I have my own problems, Erso. The world does not in fact revolve around you.” 

“Your back?” Jyn stands up, wobbling slightly at the unexpected shift in gravity. Cassian’s instinct to help her is weak enough to ignore. “Excuse me for being insensitive to it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t even know you were alive until Too told me.”

“That is not on me, Erso -” 

“You are in the next room!” She could be screaming, her voice hits him that hard. She isn’t. “You are in the next room and you weren’t the first person I saw when I woke up! You were the last person I saw before - _before_ \- and you weren’t the first and I thought I was dead and I thought _you_ were dead and it was - I couldn’t even see, it hurt to see, and I didn’t even hurt seeing you -” 

The anger crumbles like ash. The familiar guilt engulfs him. Wrong and broken and guilty. His back hurts. His legs hurt. He needs to go. He needs to run. 

“Erso,” he rips the word from his throat, when her fatigue gets the better of her. “I came to say goodbye.” 

Her panting gets faster as she tries to speak. “Goodbye?” 

He opens his mouth to explain when the meddroid, 22B comes in. “Apologies, Cassian, Jyn. Your heart rate was more elevated than normal, Jyn, I wanted to make sure all was well.” 

Cassian nods to the ground. “I’ll get out of your hair, Too-too.” 

He makes his way to retreat.

He sees the droid’s green lights blare as it starts its diagnostic. “We have been cleared to leave at 1100 hours, Cassian. Please be prepared for the jump.” 

His stomach rolls before he knows why. “‘We’?” 

The droid beeps affirmatively. “As you will both need monitoring, I volunteered to accompany you to Rundar.” 

He gives in to his need to run this time.

 

*

 

Rundar is a planet with no moons, only a tiny sun that shines for an hour a day. Too-too chose the planet’s polar night for Jyn’s eyes and its terrain and climate for Cassian; dry winter in a valley surrounded by mountains. No one says so but Cassian understands the implication; like home, the one he was born in. As if he remembers it any better than any other place he ran to. Home was never a place for him; the songs his mother used to sing him about the planet he was born on were never anything more than a comfort because of her voice.  
  
He spends transit in a med pod. He'd wanted to put up a fight when Too-too told him but Draven was with the droid, the single line on his forehead warning Cassian to shut up. Space flight turns out to be too much for him anyway; he falls into a fitful sleep hours into the jump to hyperspace, and dreams his usual. Fire and burning and Scarif. From the other side of the ship, Jyn dreams silently.  
  
The landing wakes him up roughly. He feels the familiar space sickness and shift in gravity and has to psych himself up to getting out of the pod. He pulls one of the crutches to his chest and uses it to prop himself up, his body lighter than it felt on Yavin. Small blessing, or something he has to thank the 22B droid for no doubt. His weakened legs are grateful for the ease of the weight they have to carry in any case. He adjusts the crutches under his arms and glances in Jyn's direction. She has her eyes closed as she pulls herself out of her pod on unsteady feet. Cassian fights the urge to go to her and offer a shoulder he can't give. He knows without a doubt she would say no. 

Too’s disembodied voice echoes from the flight deck. “Jyn, Cassian. We have landed on the western hemisphere of Rundar. You’ve been inoculated during the flight so you may exit while I prepare our belongings.” 

A bubble of laughter Cassian doesn’t recognize threaten to erupt from his chest. The absurdity of everything - their survival, their rescue, their half-lives - nothing quite compares to Too acting like they’re on vacation. Elsewhere in the universe people are dying, and he and Jyn Erso are allowed to pretend otherwise. 

The ship opens its doors and a biting breeze rushes inside. Cassian is distracted momentarily by the way Jyn’s hair dances in the wind. She pulls the stray hairs behind her ear rigidly like she knows he’s looking and makes her way out first. 

It’s night here. It will always be night, he reminds himself. The winter darkness lasts most of the day, with a brief respite at half the day gone. Instead of a blazing sun. the sky is all black, broken only by a green haze in the distance. He’s heard of this, though he’s never seen it; the North Lights blaze at the edge of the horizon. It makes his heart beat a little faster, the way the lights shimmer and move. He knows if he shuts his eyes he will see a different sort of horizon. The way Jyn looks down and starts moving, her head turned away from the sky, tells him she’s thinking along the same lines. They don’t share the memory with a glance between them; Cassian simply follows her lead and walks ahead. 

The dry ground crunches underfoot. It’s a flora Cassian doesn’t recognize, these frozen leaves and broken branches. If this is a planet with an atmosphere that snows, he wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up to a white landscape tomorrow. That much he does remember from his home planet; cold, snowy winters and damp summers that would turn his mother’s skin a nut brown he wanted to bury himself in. 

Their destination looms ahead. It’s a glorified hut, made of the bark of a local tree. He guesses it’s the trees they’re walking through; beasts he can’t see the top of, with rusty red trunks and leaves the size of his torso. The hut is the same rusty red, with a porch and a slanted roof made partially of a glass substance. It looks so alien compared to his usual digs; if Too was trying to find something as different to a ship as he could, he was successful. 

Jyn takes the single elevated step to the door and pushes it tentatively. He notices then, how small she’s become. He thinks of a feather, and the sense of déjà vu is so strong he can taste it on his tongue. 

He follows her inside. The building lights up under their feet as if it’s paving the way for them. It’s a soft enough light that it doesn’t make Jyn flinch. She blinks a couple of times to get her bearings and looks behind her once, as if to make sure he’s still there. He doesn’t flatter himself that it’s for his sake; even so, it settles something in him to see her eyes open and meeting his, despite the pink scarred skin surrounding them. 

There’s a galley to his right and a mess room of a sort to his left. Jyn goes forward down the hall, uninterested. She opens one of the doors pressed shut. 

It’s a single room, with a bed shoved to one wall and nothing except a flickering light hanging from the ceiling. Cassian feels colder in this room than he did on their trudge toward the cabin. He’s not surprised when Jyn sits on the bed and then lays on her side, her face to the wall, her back to him. He allows himself a second of watching her and thinking of his nightly vigil when she was asleep. Then he shakes himself until he can make his way out and away from her. 

He leans against the wall by her door and knocks his head back. He can feel the exhaustion in his bones; his legs are trembling under his weight. He looks down the corridor and contemplates one of the doors furthest away from Jyn. In the end, he just walks two steps ahead and pushes the door opposite hers open. 

The room is identical; spartan and cold. He breathes freely, grateful for the absent oppressive heat from his nightmares. 

He lowers himself on the bed and makes his body turn on its side.

Head to the wall, his back to the door, and to Jyn.

 

*

 

It goes like this: 

Cassian has nightmares every night. The beach on Scarif is as real as the first time, and his hands burn on the sand while Jyn Erso passes out over and over and over again in his arms. 

He wakes up drenched in sweat and shivering, with the unnerving feeling that someone has been watching him. He tells himself it’s because of the droid who rushes to him within seconds of his waking up. He’s not sure he believes that. 

His back is doing well, Too says. He can walk without needing to lean on something for more than a few minutes. His upper body strength is returning, his arms feel like his own, his lungs don’t betray him every time he braves the cold. His legs are still weakened, flimsy things but _give it time_ , Too says. Time has never been a luxury Cassian Andor understood. 

It goes like this: 

They keep their doors open always. 

His eyes meet hers when he wakes up, after the nightmares, standing at her door looking haunted. 

They don’t talk. 

Cassian works out in the backyard of the house, close to the edge of the Redtree forest. One, two, one, like his dad taught him. One, two, one, two, like Too tells him is the best way to stay on his feet without falling. 

He falls. A lot. Jyn Erso always seems to be there when he does.

She disappears when he trains and reappears when there is food to be eaten. In the evenings he’s too tired to pay attention to her whereabouts. When he turns in spent, her room is always empty. 

He thinks the only reason he manages to sleep is the fact that she will be there in the morning. 

It goes like this, their half-life together.

 

*

 

“Too-too?” 

One, two, one. Cassian hits the punching bag, mercilessly, picturing Krennic’s face slowly losing its shape under his fists. 

It snowed last night. Or this planet’s equivalent of snow, a soft, grey ash that makes Cassian sneeze whenever it lands on his nose. 

“Yes, Cassian?” The droid is monitoring his progress, a hologram of his injured spine hovering in front of it. 

Cassian pauses and flexes both hands, brushing away the snow ash. “About our food situation.” 

The droid looks up from the projection. “Are you unsatisfied with your supplement intake?” 

Cassian sits down on a Redtree branch he’s fashioned into a bench. He begins to unwind his bandages. “That’s pretty much it. I - _we_ need a little more than just our daily vitamins. We need _actual_ food.” 

The droid manages to look thoughtful. “You make a valid point, Cassian. ‘Actual’ food as you call it would do little for your recovery. For your mental health on the other hand...” 

The bandage falls to the ground softly. Cassian stares at the old blood stains. 

“We have very little variety in our food packs,” the droid continues. “Unless we search for food indigenous to the planet, I’m not sure what else to suggest.” 

Cassian manages to smile. “You read my mind, Too. There are seeds and plants that look like food I’ve eaten before in the forest - I could -” he searches for a word that won’t sound ridiculous, “- forage.” 

Too nods. “I must examine your forage before consumption but please, feel free.” 

He turns a bedsheet into a pouch, feeling a little like a child playing pretend. Jyn has done her usual disappearing act when he goes. Something about that - leaving their lodgings without knowing her whereabouts - makes him nervous. He files the feeling away, and begins his slow trek. 

The forest is made exclusively of Redtrees. The grass underneath them grows grey but there are shoots of green closer to the roots of the trees that make Cassian hope. He picks them carefully, collecting the roots until his pouch is full and his legs buckle under him. 

The pain in his thighs feels like fire. He hates how much he’s grateful for the sensation; anything, _anything_ other than the nothingness. Each pinprick sends tears to his eyes, and he thanks the stars for every single one. He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until his sobs start making some animal reply with its own mournful cry. 

He isn’t sure how long he sits there. He’s only aware of standing up at some point and following his own frozen footsteps to the cabin. Too doesn’t greet him; usually at this time the droid is at the ship reporting to the Rebels. 

He limps over to the galley, not looking at the crutches propped unsurprisingly against the wall. Too leans them against the wall outside his room every morning, and every morning Cassian ignores them. 

He lines up his goods on the counter by color; green, black, dark blue, bright red, brown. Nothing looks especially appetizing but his stomach growls nonetheless. He wishes Too would hurry and get back. 

He gets the sense he’s being watched when he’s washing the green shoots. He waits to see if she’ll speak first. 

“The berries make you sleep,” she says finally. “My mother used to give them to me when I had toothache.” 

He doesn’t turn, for fear of her not being there when he does.

“They grew on your home planet?” 

“One of my home planets.” Cassian imagines that she shrugs. “The green ones are edible. I hated them.” 

“How would your family cook them?” 

He hears her step closer. “Boiled sometimes. Raw other times but only with the brown stuff.” 

He wants to turn around so bad his fingers itch. The lousy instinct telling him she’s not real gets louder. “The blue?” 

“Toast it,” she says quietly. “That used to be my favourite.” 

Cassian shuts his eyes. He almost imagines her breath brushing his neck. 

Too comes in at that very moment. Cassian can’t help it; he turns. He’s just in time to see the back of her retreating down the hall. 

“I see your forage has been successful, Cassian.” 

He grunts in agreement, and puts the blue fruit to the side.

 

*

 

It goes like this: 

Cassian cooks and tries to be like his mother, the way he remembers her. It’s not bad, he thinks after tasting it the first time. He smiles after the second time, because the second time is good. 

He leaves a bowl in front of Jyn’s door every night. 

Every morning the bowl is empty. 

If this is what victory feels like, he’ll take it.

 

*

 

The second win comes days (or weeks) later. 

Cassian wakes up before his nightmare. There is no sweat on his brow and no sand under his nails. 

And Jyn Erso is singing. 

She sings out of tune and horrible, and it is the best sound Cassian Andor has heard since his resurrection. Or ever maybe. He’s always honest with himself, so he doesn’t lie that it’s not.

It goes like this: 

Jyn Erso sings their death away.

 

*

 

“What about a garden?” 

He says it more to himself than to Too. Rundar’s seasons are changing; a strange in between of cool mornings and warm nights that makes the plants he knows grow scarcer. 

He decides on a patch of grass in the backyard. He shifts the dirt, waters the ground, fences it from the strange, howling animals that visit curiously. He’s stumped as to how to go on. He isn’t a farmer, has never been a farmer. If his parents were, they became something different after having him, and he has lived on a ship since he was a child. 

He digs slowly, his hands getting steadily more stained with dirt. He squints at the mess he’s created, as if any of it will up and let him know the best way to keep it all alive. 

“If you have any advice,” he says, not talking to the plants, “I would appreciate it.” 

“Make sure the hole you’ve dug is big enough for the roots,” says Jyn. She takes her time to walk around him, until she’s standing over him. He dares himself to look up. She has her arms crossed over her chest and her hair is falling loose over her shoulders. She’s wrapped herself in a blanket he knows she sleeps with. “They need to spread,” she continues. “And make sure the soil isn’t hard around them.” She makes a gesture with her hands. “Break it up with your fingers.” 

He does as he’s told, keenly aware she’s watching him. “So,” he mutters casually when he feels brave. “Gardening?”

“Farming,” she replies quietly, after a pause. “Years ago.” 

He thinks that’s as much as he will get. She moves, not away from him, but closer. She folds her body and sits on the ground just beyond reach. 

“After we escaped. My parents and I, my father took us to Lah’mu. He said he’d always wanted to live on a farm.” She’s not looking at him as she talks, so when her mouth twitches into an almost smile, he doesn’t think she notices. He does though; he has to swallow the lump that rises in his throat at the sight. 

“They were good at it. I think that’s the life they found suited them best.” She absent-mindedly pets the ground at her feet. Like this, with her hair down, in the half-dark, she looks like the kid she must have been on Lah’mu. 

Cassian hands her one of the tools he’s fashioned. She takes it, something in her eyes looking overwhelmed. 

They work together in silence.

 

*

 

“Who’s Milio?” 

He’s up to his elbows in dirt, lifting the green roots carefully and replanting them closer to the Redtree that’s growing swiftly in their garden. It’s Jyn’s suggestion. Cassian is long since past not listening when she speaks. _Eager_ , K2’s voice thinks for him, _too eager_. He finds he doesn’t care either way. 

“What,” he mutters, holding a root delicately between his fingers. He’s heard her wrong. 

Jyn takes a breath. It’s loud in the quiet of Rundar’s evening. “Milio. Who is he?” 

Cassian freezes. He stares in front of him, not seeing the frozen ground anymore.

He hasn’t heard anyone say that name aloud in years. 

“How do you know that name?” he croaks out. 

When he finally looks at her, she looks careful. Like it took her this long to form the sentence. 

“You talk in your sleep,” she says, stepping on every fear he’s ever had, one word at a time. “In the mornings. When you’re dreaming.” 

“I said his name?” 

She doesn’t blink. “It was the first time I heard that one today. Usually it’s…” She hesitates, her eyes flitting to nothing rather than meet his. “Usually it’s another name you call.” 

He exhales the freezing air like smoke. He’s very aware that they both know whose name she didn’t say. 

He rubs his hands together. It only serves to make his hands more thoroughly dirty. He leans back until his back hits the trunk of the Redtree and rearranges his legs in front of him. Jyn is at a safe distance; she sits on the log he usually uses as a bench. Her eyes are back on him, intent. 

“Milio.” He tests the name out in his mouth. It’s strange how it doesn’t fit there anymore, when it fit so well before. “He was someone I cared about, someone important to me. That died.” 

The silence is as harsh as the cold until Jyn laughs. Cassian feels his eyebrows knit together, at a complete loss. “Is that funny?” 

She wipes frozen tears from her eyes. “A lot,” she says breathlessly. “Isn’t it? Everyone important to you. And to me. Dead.” 

The laughter dies in her throat. She stands up, patting down her thighs. Cassian has to watch her walk away, again. 

“Not everyone.” For a moment, he doesn’t realize it’s his own voice speaking. 

She stops in her tracks. 

“Not everyone that is important to me is dead, Jyn.”

If he’s going to fall, he figures, he better take it jumping.

 

*

 

It rains for the first time. The skies open, and water pours out of them in cascades. Cassian watches from their porch as the world ripples in front of his eyes. Jyn joins him eventually, rubbing the cold from her body with her blanket. Her hair is soaked, as is the rest of her. 

“I had to cover the garden,” she murmurs. She sounds self-conscious. She pulls the blanket closer and glances at him. There’s a smudge of dirt on her cheek. 

He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, his knees are trembling as if he’s been standing for hours and his breath comes into his lungs in sharp, shallow bursts. _Not a coward_ , he thinks. _Not today_. 

He touches the same place on his own face. “You have -” He has always relied on his words. They fail him now. She is still turned toward him. 

He reaches out slowly, giving her time to lean back. She doesn’t. 

Her skin is as soft as his hands aren’t, with callouses from the garden and cuts and bruises from training. He uses a thumb - carefully, just a thumb - to rub the smudge off. 

She might have been crying but he knows it’s the rain. He knows it just as he knows Jyn Erso has not cried in a very long time. 

He pulls back and his thumb feels like it’s on fire.

 

*

 

Later, Cassian stands by the door as Jyn starts making a meal out of the scraps from the garden and the measly leftovers from yesterday. He can tell she’s conscious of her audience from the way she doesn’t turn toward him, even by accident. Premeditated awareness; her body moves with her back to him, even when it doesn’t make sense to. And yet she isn’t tense. It’s as though she’s almost comfortable, here, now, crouching low over the stove to get the fire going. It’s such a foreign concept that it takes him a while to take notice when she’s talking to him.  
  
“Cassian? Sit down, I’ll get it for you.”  
  
He blinks and nods to the crease of her clothes on her back, doing as he’s told. The chair he pulls out drags on the floor and makes him wince. Jyn says nothing, still turned away as she pours soup into two separate bowls. When she’s done, she sets one down on the table in front of him and moves to sit opposite him. The seat farthest from him, or closest to escape, depending on how you look at it. It’s hard to know which one made the choice for her.  
  
They eat in silence. For a while, the only sounds in the house are a spoon scraping the side of a bowl.  
  
“It’s good,” he grunts suddenly, and he’s not sure it’s a conscious decision when he speaks. He’s never been much for small talk.  
  
She snorts and it’s such a surprising noise that he looks up and catches her eye. She’s amused, the spoon caught between her lips. She pulls it out and tilts her head to the side, making most of the hair piled on her head come loose. “It tastes like crap.”  
  
“It’s good,” he repeats emphatically.  
  
She twirls the spoon in acknowledgement. “I’ve had worse.”  
  
His mouth twitches. “So have I.”  
  
She smiles again but there’s no amusement there this time.  
  
He watches the derelict landscape outside disappear and listens to Too beep and whir as the droid checks on its data. It’s a comfortable quiet hovering between them; it feels like something they’ve allowed, rather than forced upon each other. Even when it’s interrupted by Jyn humming under her breath as she takes their bowls away, it feels like a habit of two people who’ve lived together too long to find each other’s sounds anything other than a comfort. 

“What is that?” he asks, his eyes tracking the rise and fall of her shoulder blades as she starts adding words to the melody. “The song.” 

She finishes rinsing and then grabs a rag to dry the cutlery off. Her back against the sink now, she gazes at him. “My mother. I don’t know if she made it up or if she was taught by her own mother, but she used to sing it all the time to me.” 

“It’s a sad song,” he says softly. 

She shrugs. “Aren’t we sad people, Cassian Andor?”

“I thought we were angry.” 

She nods this time. “You were angrier than me.” 

The words make him laugh in surprise. “Not even close, Jyn Erso. You were mad at the whole world.” 

Her mouth falls open in affront. “ _Me?_ I didn’t know you had any emotion to spare besides looking moody all the time!” She draws a finger across her forehead. “There was a permanent line there whenever you looked at me!” 

“You were very frustrating!” 

“So were you!” 

He laughs again, and it still surprises him. This time she joins him, the chuckle making her turn her face away and cover her mouth with a fist. He wants to make her laugh again but he can’t think how. When she looks at him again, she’s not laughing; there’s a quiet smile playing at her lips that will do for now. 

“We had a right to be angry,” she muses. She’s still rubbing the rag over and over one of the bowls, even though it’s dry. Cassian stands up and takes both from her hands. His fingers brush hers for the blink of an eye. 

“We have a right to be sad too,” he says. 

“Cassian?” 

He looks at her, maybe a hand’s width away from him. She’s holding out her hand to fill the distance. 

He takes it and squeezes tight, all too aware what they’re both thinking. He doesn’t look at her expecting a warning this time; he doesn’t see the light fade from her eyes. All he sees is Jyn. Alive. 

“Teach me the song,” he says, instead of goodbye.

 

*

 

In the evenings this time of year, the weak sun makes a twilit appearance above the planet. Cassian takes advantage of it all he can, missing sunlight more than he thought possible. Jyn joins him after the go-ahead from Too who examines her eyes and pronounces them much improved. She still has pink scars on the tissue around them but they’re thin as expert stitchwork, or he’s become familiar with them over time. Either way, as much as he avoided meeting her eyes before, now Cassian stares and drinks her in, in the little light there is. 

She sings to him, sitting on the porch of the house, kept warm by the blanket she wraps around her shoulders. 

He sings back to her and sips from the glass in his hand. He found the bottle wrapped in a shirt; a glass decanter full of clear liquid, and he knew straight away Draven had smuggled it in there. Jyn has her own mug cradled in her lap. 

“It’s not fair, you know,” she says, nursing her drink. 

“What isn’t?” He knows already, and he’s smiling. His excuse is that it’s late and he’s tired and he’s - almost - content.

She snorts. “Your voice. It’s not fair that you can sing like that, and I sound like a nerf.” 

He laughs. It’s so much easier to do these days. He takes another sip and then sits next to her, nudging her with the bottle. Whenever she sings out of tune - which is always - he makes her gulp a shot of the concoction. Whenever he hits the note perfectly, she shoves the bottle at him and demands - in a slow, foggy voice - that he do the same. 

She hiccups another verse of the lullaby and her hand slides over his. It doesn’t take him by surprise anymore but his chest always seems to close in for a moment after. “Do you still have the nightmares - Cassian?” 

Her fingers have slipped through his in the loosest grip. He hums a yes. He lost her at the beach again last night. 

“They aren’t as bad.” He wants to reassure her; the suffocating heat is there, and his skin burns like it’s on fire, and her heart always stops beating in the second before he wakes up. But he doesn’t wake up screaming anymore. He turns their hands and curls their fists into one. 

“Cassian?” Even like this, a bit drunk, she sounds sceptical. 

“It’s gotten better,” he says truthfully, and looks at her to drive the point home. It’s still startling how close they can be now. Her eyes look brighter in this light. “Your awful singing in the morning helps.” 

She looks at him like she doesn’t believe him. 

“Really,” he says emphatically. 

She keeps looking at him until she seems to make a decision. She stands up but doesn’t let go, dragging him alongside her. When he wobbles, she offers a shoulder for him to lean on. Their walk inside is slow progress but Cassian can’t do anything but appreciate the warmth of her on his side. 

When they get to the corridor, he moves to free her shoulder. She holds on though, and pulls him away from his bedroom door. Instead, she walks them both into her room and leads him to the bed. 

He sits awkwardly, taking note of how it looks more lived in than his. Her meagre clothes are strewn across the floor and there’s a half-empty bowl of berries by her bedside. It smells like her, like she lives here, not just exists; he breathes in to settle himself. He doesn’t know - doesn’t want to imagine - why he’s here. 

He watches her plait her hair and splash water on her face from a small basin. Knowing he’s privy to Jyn’s bedtime ritual makes a current travel through him. Seeing Jyn take off her clothes wouldn’t be more intimate than this. 

At that thought, Cassian feels his breathing speed up. 

“Don’t get too excited, Andor.” She balls up her blanket and throws it at him and he’ll blame his tiredness for his reflexes being slow and taking it full in the face. “Lie down. It’s bedtime.” 

He does what she says, pushing until his back hits the wall. She doesn’t come to the bed but moves toward the door. For a heart-stopping moment, Cassian thinks she’s leaving.She’s not; she goes to the door and makes to shut it. He lifts himself up from where he’s laying, his legs stubbornly still.

"What are you -? You never sleep with the door shut."  
  
She pauses with the door halfway. In the half-light she looks more shadow than girl. "Ask what I am afraid of, Cassian."  
  
_Death. Pain. Guilt._ In his head, K2 answers for both of them. "What are you afraid of?"  
  
"The dark. In my nightmares I'm stuck in a bunker and no one comes to rescue me. My nightmares don’t make me scream but they still..." She shuts the door. She’s not even a shadow now. 

“I’m tired,” she says, and he feels her slip into the bed beside him. There’s a sliver of space between them in the single bed. “Let’s see if this works, alright?” 

He nods and puts his hand flat on the mattress between them. After a moment, she puts her palm on top.

 

*

 

It goes like this: 

Cassian Andor watches Jyn Erso sleep their death away.

 

*

 

The first time Cassian Andor thought of kissing Jyn Erso, he also thought about killing her. 

The stupid girl didn’t know, had no idea how the world worked. This girl who had lived her life pretending to be someone she wasn’t was staring at him like he was a madman. She’d gotten to him; he knew she was dangerous from the moment he felt himself bend and snap under her words. Cassian Andor didn’t get gotten; this was not supposed to happen. 

 _“I’ve been in this fight since I was six,”_ he’d yelled. It wasn’t a secret; if you’d been around long enough, you could figure out how long Cassian has made himself a cog in a fighting machine. _“You carry your cage with you,”_ Chirrut had guessed, so it was there, his past, written on him like he was a book. But it wasn’t the admission; it was the fact that she made him want to prove himself. He hated her in that moment; for having a parent long enough to care, instead of being nursed by a rebellion; for knowing she had the right to scream, when he collected his deaths silently; for burning brightly, when he made it his life’s work to skulk in the shadows. He hated her, and he wanted to kill her, and he wanted to kiss her, all in the same breath. 

He remembers the force of the feeling startling the life out of him. He had to get away, not because of the impulse to kill. That wasn’t new; that one he could control, that one he knew how to handle. That one was more bedfellow than any human falling asleep beside him. 

Wanting to kiss her though… There was no room to breathe in the stolen cargo shuttle, let alone question that idiotic compulsion. He’d almost asked K2 to slap him again. He did the next best thing and ignored it, filing it away with everything that wouldn’t be of use to him. 

The second time, he didn’t hate her at all. 

Bodhi got them through the gate to Scarif. The trembling, broken man Cassian had met on Jedha had done the impossible, and Cassian could see it in the way he stood how much this meant to him. Even K2 seemed satisfied, and Cassian knew from too much experience that the droid rarely had a good word to say about a human. 

Jyn laughed, the sound as crystal clear as a temple bell ringing. Cassian, halfway up the steps to the flight deck, had the overwhelming instinct to flee hearing her. But he didn’t, because she caught him too fast. Her eyes met his, bright and sparkling and looking at him like he was the only one she wanted to share this with. The feeling hit him with a sense of déjà vu that almost floored him. He hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone since Milio. He could hear his heartbeat beating a tattoo and his palms itched with the need to move and meet her and press his mouth on her. 

The clarity of it scared the crap out of him. He could imagine her face cradled between his hands and the pinched skin in her cheeks as she smiled and he knew he could lift her up in that moment, lift her and spin her as if they were children playing. 

He did none of those things. The buoyancy was contagious so he let himself smile, and when Jyn came close - too close, not close enough - he clenched his fists and let her by. 

The third time, the kiss was an almost living thing in between two almost dead people. 

Whenever he blinked he saw Krennic, that bastard, lying on the floor thanks to Cassian’s shot. When he opened his eyes, he saw Jyn, holding him upright, his arm over her shoulders. 

The elevator was dark, powered only through the emergency generator. There was something like relief daring to leak through him and he hated it because he didn’t trust it. But it was there; in Krennic’s corpse, in the plans even now floating above them, in the Rebels surrounding them. In Jyn, looking up at him, daring to hope. 

Her breath caressed his lips and Cassian wanted to kiss her like mad. Like he’d go mad if he didn’t, and mad if he did. The only thing stopping him from going over the brink was the way she was looking at him, like she was going mad too. 

He smiled at her, letting a little of the madness slip through. She smiled back and it tasted like victory. They were going to make it, he thought then.

 

*

 

It goes like this: 

Cassian hasn’t stopped wanting to kiss her like mad.

 

*

 

When Cassian wakes up, Jyn isn’t there. 

He opens his eyes slowly, his body protesting any movement. He takes a moment to go over the nightmare; the beach, the heat, Jyn’s hand in his. Only this time, when he shakes off sleep, he knows it’s not real. He knows it sure enough that when he doesn’t see Jyn curled by his side, his instinct is to sit up and look for her in the room. When he realizes she isn’t close, he goes cold. 

He takes the crutches perched by the door because he doesn’t trust his legs today. She’s not in his bedroom. She’s not in the mess room, or the galley. The porch is empty, damp from the rainfall during the night. She’s not in the backyard, although someone has put the fence upright since their usual nighttime animal visitors. 

“Your heart rate has increased in the last thirty seconds, Cassian,” says Too, appearing behind him. “Are you alright?” 

Cassian, slow and heavy with the crutches, turns eventually. “How’s Jyn, Too,” he disregards the question about his own health. “Where is she?” 

A look that’s almost understanding passes through the droid’s intelligent eyes.“I am monitoring her. She wanted to be alone.” 

“Where is she,” he repeats. 

The droid takes a moment to decide before he points ahead of them. “About one klick into the forest. There’s a clearing straight ahead.” 

“Yes, I know it.” He adjusts the crutches under his arms. “I’ll look for her. It looks like it might storm.” 

He puts on a jacket to protect himself from the icy wind. The hood comes too low over his eyes but he doesn’t need to see where he’s going; he knows the way, and he’s been this way so many times before the path in front of him is well-trodden. He digs the heels of his crutches deep into the soil and starts walking. 

He finds her under a Redtree, huddled under its huge branches from the rain that’s started dribbling from the sky. She’s still just in the shirt she slept in last night.

"Jyn-" 

"My name is _not_ Jyn," she intones in a blank voice. 

The deadness of her voice makes him flinch. He has to stop himself from taking a step back. "Jyn, what -" 

She looks at him before she speaks this time and he thinks of Jyn, in another place, in another time, having just lost her father. "I’m not - my name is _Lianna_ -" 

The storm rumbles above them. "Jyn, stop it -" 

"Don't! Don't! It was _supposed_ to work, it was supposed to make it stop! It didn't! It made it worse! I didn’t dream about the bunker, I dreamt about _you_ , I heard your _back_ break!" She covers her ears, as if she can still hear the sound. 

"Jyn..." 

"No.” She shakes her vehemently. “I'm not Jyn. I don't want to be Jyn." 

He nods slowly, letting go of one of the crutches to lift a palm up. "Okay. Okay then. You're Lianna. And I'm -" he searches for a name in his stash of names but only one ever fit. "I'm Milio, okay?" He approaches, reaching out with his hand. 

She’s breathing so heavily he can barely hear the rain pour. She dips her head low and then looks at his proffered hand. “I woke up and I thought you were dead.” 

He doesn’t know how to say it’s okay when he doesn’t believe it. “I don’t know if it’s going to stop,” he says instead. “All I know is that you make it better.” 

She takes his hand. He braces himself for her weight - still a feather, but he still needs sticks to stand straight - and pulls her up. Still holding her hand, he wraps the jacket he’s wearing around her scrawny shoulders. She buries her head into his neck; her warm breath tickles his chin. 

“You make it better too,” she whispers. She’s made a fist with his shirt and aligned her body with his. He can feel every curve of her, from the dip of her neck to her chest and the jut of her hipbones. Her nails, twisted in the material of his shirt, scrape against his skin. He knows, logically, that the temperature surrounding them is cold, freezing. Aside from last night laying by her side, Cassian can’t remember ever feeling warmer. 

She looks up at him, her eyes hooded and haunted. He thinks about every time he’s thought about kissing her. He doesn’t move. 

She’s tentative with it, and slow. Cassian has time to feel the cold in every crack and cut on her lips with the way they’re pressing their mouths together. It’s like how children kiss, when they have never done it before; mouth on mouth and holding their breath, with Jyn’s eyes screwed shut like she doesn’t want to know if they do it wrong. 

She pulls back suddenly and for all that it wasn’t the kiss that’s driven him mad, Cassian feels the loss like a limb missing. Her hand is still clenched around his shirt and she grips it tight now. 

“That was Lianna,” she says, her eyes staring at him fixedly. “I need you to be Cassian now.” 

The fourth time Cassian Andor thinks about kissing Jyn Erso, she kisses him first.

 

*

 

Jyn blows out the match in her hand and perches the lantern on her bedside table. Her shadow flickers on the far side of the room, much bigger than the slight girl who comes to sit next to Cassian. She makes sure his crutches are within reaching distance and then crosses her legs, pulling one of his hands in her lap. Their thumbs engage in a fight with each other; Jyn whoops when she presses down on his thumb triumphantly. 

He finds that he can’t stop looking at her. At the way her hair falls now that she leaves it loose, in vague curls that go just beyond her shoulders. At the pink scars around her eyes that he could describe in perfect detail; at the smile that makes the corners of her mouth turn up only just and makes dimples he didn’t know existed appear in her cheeks. At her hands, calloused like his; at the shirt that clings to her waist. 

“Too’s powered down for the night,” she murmurs, grinning shyly. He didn’t think he’d live to see the day Jyn Erso would be self-conscious about a droid. 

“Good to know,” he grins back. For a moment, they sit still and quiet. Then, taking it no longer, Cassian tugs at her and Jyn crawls into his lap, her legs framing his hips. Their intertwined hands rest on Cassian’s chest. 

Madness is not so terrifying when it lies on the curve of Jyn Erso’s lips. This time, they aren’t Lianna and Milio, two children that are strangers to each other. This time, Cassian recognizes Jyn in every breath of hers that passes through his mouth. Her lips frame his top lip like they fit there and his tongue grazes against them, ridges and cuts and all. When she sucks on his mouth viciously, he doesn’t argue except to bring her closer, because who is he to say he doesn’t belong to her. His hand that isn’t still locked in hers travels from her shoulder down, by the curve of her waist to the small of her back, and makes a seat for her, squeezing and kneading to the tempo of their panting. 

He feels her fingers dance along the jut of his jaw, the pad of her thumb rubbing against his stubble. He accepts her guidance, tipping his face up so she can get better purchase on his mouth. She thanks him with a softer kiss on his Cupid’s bow, her hand twirling a curl from his forehead and pushing it back gently. It’s a softness he doesn’t recognize, either from Jyn, or from anyone. Cassian doesn’t ever remember being handled delicately and he swallows it now like a man starving.

Tenderness may be new to him, but the way Jyn is moving against him isn’t. Her body juts rhythmically toward him, to timed and measured release. Cassian almost - _almost_ \- wants to laugh but he carefully doesn’t; Jyn knows her body this well. Cassian wants to know it better. He lets go of her hand and cups the back of her neck in warning, before tipping her weight and rolling them both. She falls with her back flat on the bed with an ‘oomph’ exhaled from her mouth. He kisses it from her with a smile and lays his forearms beside her face. She moves her thighs apart so he can fit a knee between them. 

Another kiss to her mouth; soft again, and Cassian thinks he could collect soft kisses like these for eternity. Then one at her throat, close to where he can hear blood pumping, then further down, between two bird bones. He kisses the dip between the swell of her breasts over her shirt, mindful that they’re both still fragile and that this is more than either of them have allowed in years. At her waist, he lifts the hem of her shirt only just enough to press his mouth over her belly button. Her hand in his hair keeps him there for a moment, both of them breathing in tandem. Then she pushes him lower. 

His hands tremble as he unties the laces of her trousers and peels them off her. He helps her lift herself up with a hand on the small of her back, and shimmy them off. She lies back then, her finger twirling that one stubborn hair behind his ear again. 

He kisses the wet patch on her underwear, humming when he hears her respond. He kisses again and again, working his mouth over her, using his tongue to get every sound he can from her. Her thighs frame his face and he tightens his grip on them, imagining the bruises he’ll see there tomorrow. She moans and he moans with her, feeling the vibrations travelling from his tongue to her. When she starts panting more heavily, with uncoordinated breaths, he licks harder.

She comes quietly, a sigh more than a storm. He keeps his face between her legs, smiling when she twitches, her body oversensitive. Once her labored breathing eases, her hand seeks him blindly to pull him up alongside her. He goes sluggishly, dropping his weight carefully so his legs don’t feel it. 

Strands of Jyn’s hair are sweat-stuck to her forehead. Her eyes though… her eyes are sparkling enough to make him want to do that all over again. Her hand finds its way to his hair. 

“Sleep,” she allows him. “We have time.”

 

*

 

The dreams are always the same; heat and light and pain. He doesn't wish them away anymore. They’re part of him and his story. He has to learn to live with them, the way he learns to live with the crutches, and the memories of Rogue One, and Kay’s voice living in his head. The way he learns to live on this planet. The way he learns to live with Jyn.

That’s the easy part, and the hard part. They think about pushing two beds into one but sometimes the nightmares are too loud and Cassian wants to hide and not share them. They make it work; they fit in her bed wrapped around each other tightly enough that it’s difficult to know whose limb belongs to each of them.

Soon, they’ll get the call from the rebels and Cassian will feel the familiar itch of wanting, of needing to _do_. Not a spy anymore, not a captain. But not as broken as before. As long as he has Jyn’s shoulder to lean on, he can become himself again. When he looks at her and sees the same need, he knows she’ll use his shoulder just the same. Broken and together will have to be enough. He thinks it is. He knows it.

 

*

 

It goes like this:

Cassian welcomed Jyn home once. Somewhere along the way she's become his.


End file.
